15 Ways to Get Your Insurance Agency Shared on Other Facebook Pages

​I saw something on Facebook last week that put a huge smile on my face.

I was reading through my news feed and saw a post from one of my personal connections about an amazing customer experience with their insurance agent.

It was a glowing endorsement from someone who called their agent about a rate hike and wound up saving money.

(I have no idea what she gave up but that’s not the point here)

​As of right now, that post has received 21 likes, 8 comments and I’d guess it’s probably been seen by over 1,000 people in Syracuse where the agent does business.  (my beloved, but not missed, hometown).

​And that’s not counting the 2,954 people that saw the screenshot I shared on our FB page.

Anyways… It got me thinking about what kind of actions insurance agents can take to generate more social media buzz around their agency and this is what I came up with:

Here’s 15 ways you can get your insurance agency shared on other people’s Facebook pages.

Enjoy!

1) Deliver Amazing & Unexpected Customer Experiences

​I know it’s a bit obvious and I hate when people talk about generalities like this but I had to say it anyway.

There’s absolutely nothing share-worthy about business as usual but when you’re different, surprising, and exceptional people will talk.

Have you read Purple Cow yet?

Delivering an amazing & unexpected customer experience is impossible for every single customer but here is my challenge to you:

Can you do something amazing that truly delights one customer every single day?

It’ll pay far more dividends than just social media shares.

2) Encourage Photo Tagging

​When you post a photo on your agency’s Facebook page encourage the people in the photo to tag themselves.

On Facebook, tagging a photo means you’re identifying yourself in the photo and it pulls that photo onto your own page and it may display in your friends’ news feeds.

If you take a picture of a client or community member and post it to your Facebook page the only people who may see it are your fans (and to be honest, only a small percentage of them).

If someone with 500 friends tags herself in your agency’s picture it’s now available to be seen by all those 500 people in the newsfeed and anyone who browses that person’s photos in the future!

If it’s someone you’re friends with on your personal account you can even tag them yourself!

3) Take Pictures With Popular People

​This is a follow-up tip for the recommendation above.

The more pictures you take, the more opportunities for tagging and the more popular the people you’re tagging, the more exposure!

If you meet a popular person in the community like the mayor, chamber of commerce president, or just someone with a lot of friends, take a picture with them and post it on your Facebook page.

If they tag themselves (or you do it for them) you’ll get a nice reach and you’ll also get the benefit of improved trust by being associated with highly likeable people!

​4) Post Events

On Facebook, you can create an event for just about anything. It’s just a date, location, and information about something going on in the future.

Because people like to attend events with their friends, it’s also something people will be likely to share.

Although Facebook events are usually for something you’re organizing they don’t have to be.

You can create a Facebook event for a community event even if someone else is putting it together as long as you’re planning to attend or somehow related.

And when you post the event, make sure to ask people to share it with their friends!

​5) Awesome Claim-Related Support

​I know a lot of insurance agents who like to stay as far away from claims as possible.

As a former claim adjuster I get it – claims are messy and it’s easy to get in the way.

But claims are also an amazing opportunity to help your clients when they’re most vulnerable.

I know an agent who orders pizza for all his homeowner clients the day they file a claim. Another who gives clients a ride to work when their car is in the shop and another agent who drives out to his clients’ car accidents to take pictures and make sure they’re okay.

Those are the types of things that people talk about on Facebook.

​6) Write Business Reviews

​Using Facebook as your agency (as opposed to yourself) you can go to other local business Facebook pages and write reviews.

I’d obviously keep it positive and I wouldn’t review another businesses unless you have a legitimate relationship.

A link to your Facebook page will be right there next to your review and there’s a decent chance they’ll even return the favor and write something nice about you.

The good thing about this one is it doesn’t require anyone else to do anything, you can go out and make it happen right now. (Or once a week – it’d be a good habit to start)

​7) Promote Your Client’s Business

Go visit one of your client’s business, take a couple pictures, and do a post on your agency’s Facebook page recommending them.

All it takes is a picture or two and a sentence about why they’re so good at what they do.

There’s a decent chance they’ll share your post on their page or they might even do the same for you on their page.

In any event, you’re generating buzz about something that’s local, and what goes around comes around.

8) Get More Followers

​The more people who follow your agency’s Facebook page, the more they’ll see your posts and the more opportunity for sharing.

Read this article for a ton of ideas to grow your fanbase.

9) Facebook Contests

​There are several different ways to run a contest on your Facebook page.

It can be as simple as “Like this update to be entered into a raffle” or you could use an app like Offerpop or Shortstack to develop something with more capability.

However you do it, the key is to create a contest people will want to share and talk about.

If it’s not worth talking about, it’s probably not worth doing.

​10) Publish Content Worth Sharing

I know that sounds obvious.

But if it was, I’d see a lot more insurance agents with higher engagement on their Facebook pages.

People will share stuff that’s helpful, novel, and makes them look good.

An article on Yahoo about how to save money on car insurance isn’t any of those things.

11) Pay Attention To When Your Connections Mention Local Businesses

If you’re a personal user of Facebook, start paying more attention to what kind of stuff your Facebook friends talk about.

You don’t need to setup an excel spreadsheet.

Just make a mental note any time you see someone discussing a local business and think about how that situation may relate to your agency and how you may be able to encourage the same behavior from your clients.

If you use Facebook you’re already spending time in the newsfeed, I’m just asking you to pay a bit more attention to what you see there and how it can relate to local businesses like yours.

​12) Set Goals for Social Media Mentions

​You probably already set goals for sales, referrals, quotes, phone calls, and most of the other elements of your sales and marketing.

Why not set some goals for social media mentions?

It doesn’t need to be anything crazy, but if you set a goal of getting one person or business each week to mention you on their Facebook page could you do it?

Even if you couldn’t, would reaching for that goal get you talking, thinking, and acting toward it more?

​13) Pay Commission for Social Media Mentions

If you’re going to get your staff involved, consider paying for social media mentions they initiate.

Keep in mind that it’s going to be a lot easier for staff members who actively use social media to talk about it with customers.

You might get more return out of this idea if you pay with some kind of perk like an extra 30 minutes for lunch or leaving 30 minutes early on Friday since I doubt you can put a whole lot of money into commissions for something like this.

14) Put Your Social Mentioners on Display

When someone talks about your agency on social media, take a screenshot of their comments and post them to your page for everyone to see.

First of all, it’s a great way to say “thanks” and reward the behavior from someone who’s probably a very loyal customer.

More importantly, it shows everyone else who follows you on Facebook how much you appreciate social mentions and might even inspire them to do it themselves.

15) Just Ask For It

Like anything in sales, if you don’t ask for it you won’t get it.

And nothing prevents you from asking a satisfied customer from making a status update on Facebook about whatever you did for them.

It would be silly to ask in every situation but if you just saved someone $1,200 a year and they’re “walkin’ on sunshine” you’ve got a good chance of getting them to mention your agency online.

Personally, I’d recommend pushing more toward getting them to write a positive online review on Google or Yelp, but a status update might be more attainable.

Wrap Up

If you’ve read this far I bet these two things are true:

1. You know it’d help your agency to get more social media mentions
2. You found at least an idea or two here that you can implement

The question is, will you take action?

If you found an idea here you’ll actually take action on, click the like button so I know I’m not wasting my time.

And if you know another agent or sales manager that believes in the power of social media, please share it with them.

I hope this helps,
-John